In general, activated carbon is broadly used, because of its excellent adsorbing property, as an agent for removing pollutants from air, water, etc., or purifying water or air. Activatd carbon when employed in the form of a sphere has many advantages. That is, spherical activated carbon can be readily transferred from one place to another due to its rolling property, and can also be easily filled uniformly in or discharged from a container or vessel in practical applications. Moreover, spherical activated carbon shows low resistance to a flow of gas or a liquid when applied in a packed bed. The same can be also employed even in a fluidized bed with easy handling. In addition, because of its spherical form, the spherical activated carbon is hardly broken into fragment during operation and almost free from abrasion losses which would occur in a material degree with other shapes.
While, spherical carbon moldings have also many applications other than in activated spherical carbons which have the above-mentioned advantages. For example, in case where carbon moldings in the form of a sphere is used for producing a composite material by mixing a metal (aluminum, copper, tin, etc.,) or a synthetic resin (a nylon, polyester, epoxy resin, fluororesin, etc.), the resultant composite material is remarkably improved in resistances to abrasion and surface-lubricating property, as compared with those using known carbon powder or granule, due to high mechanical strengths inherent to the spherical form and due to the uniformly mixing property of the spherical carbon with the metal or resin. Spherical carbon moldings are also useful as a filler in powder painting or as a starting material for producing isotropic graphite.
Spherical carbon moldings have been heretofore produced by mixing powdery carbon or carbon precurser with a binding agent and molding the mixture into a spherical form. The resultant spherical carbon moldings can be activated in a usual manner to form activated spherical carbon. In the prior molding method using powdered starting materials, however, it is very difficult to form fine spherical carbon moldings or activated carbon having a diameter of from several .mu. to 1 mm. The use of the powdered materials incurs reductions in operational efficiency and undesirable irregularities in shape. Accordingly, it is desired to provide a method which is capable of efficiently producing spherical carbon moldings and spherical activated carbon of better quality.